Posted
by
samzenpuson Sunday March 04, 2012 @12:06PM
from the don't-vortex-me-bro dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Vortex technology has been used in everything from rocket-powered fire extinguishers to Nerf guns, but neither of those things are capable of giving the beat-down to hapless protesters. By giving spinning vortices an electric charge, though, pepper spray can be sent over 150 feet at between 60 and 90 mph. A vortex gun uses a pressure wave and a carefully designed barrel to fire donut-shaped rings of air that can hold themselves together over long distances. The military (starting with the German military during World War II) has been running experiments with using vortex canons to knock things over, but it's not a particularly efficient or effective way to go. What the gas rings can be used for is transporting other gasses (like pepper spray or tear gas or pesticide) long distances with a decent amount of accuracy, holding their cargo inside the calm center spinning vortex."

"The Israeli military used a suppressed.22 LR rifle in the 1990s for riot control and to "eliminate disturbing dogs prior to operations", though it is now used less often as it has been shown to be more lethal than previously suspected."

Actually university police often are sworn police officers, making them peers to your municipal police department and giving them the ability to pursue, detain, and arrest. Many universities also operate security guard branches as well, and they are typically not sworn officers. However, those guys you see driving around in school-colored vehicles with CAMPUS POLICE emblazoned on the side are typically, in every respect, real police officers. Additionally, they almost universally have an understanding with municipal departments to work together cooperatively, so if they find themselves in a corner case (occurred on campus, detained off campus) they can simply contact dispatch and request a municipal officer.

In addition to speaking without prior restraint, the first amendment also guarantees the right to peaceable assembly. The cops should have just shrugged and walked away. In fact, they never should have made the request in the first place, provided that those assembled were not belligerent. NOTE: saying things you disagree with =/= belligerency.

Uhh, yeah they do. If cops fired lethal weapons into crowds whenever there was a rock thrown at them, there would be many more casualties in protest situations. Non-lethal weapons were designed and are used specifically for stopping violent protesters without having to use lethal force.

I'm not saying use of non-lethal weapons isn't abused, but come on. Very few (if any) cops want to be the guy who shot his sidearm into a crowd of protesters. Even if they don't wind up being prosecuted, it would make their life very shitty for a while.

There is a downside to this "non-lethal" weaponry, and that is that it mutes public outcry over the suppression of speech. There is video from the 60s of bloodied protesters during and after police brutality which helped win sympathizers to the causes and was in part responsible for necessary social changes. With the modern forms of police brutality, those images don't exist and the protesters have lost a valuable form of leverage. Images of kids crying because of pepper spray, are much less powerful tha

With the modern forms of police brutality, those images don't exist and the protesters have lost a valuable form of leverage.

No, the thing that the protesters have lost is anonymity and the ability to tell just one side of the story -- theirs. Now, with citizen journalism and the abundance of video, they can no longer cry, "police brutality!" at every encounter. This is why many at OWS have attacked those carring cameras and have refused to allow access to news media (see Oakland.) They want to be able

what? talk about misrepresenting the truth. police lobbies are no better. they are pushing to make filming officers in public illegal so that the police can make up events in politically convenient ways. that way beat officers can play up the 'serve and protect' image while acting out their high school bullying days with state backing.. yeah, no thanks. at least with criminals, I know what they want, so they're easy to avoid. the bully cop just wants to get away with doing as little work as possible while having fun at citizens' expense when the opportunity arises. woe unto you if he's bored and/or lazy and you're the easiest target, or if your situation forces him to do some extra paperwork because he's just as likely to 'serve and protect' you right into an arrest...and yes this is a lot more common than police (or their sackriders) will admit because police work attracts bully mentalities, crusaders, and other mental delinquents. in cases like OWS, these mentalities go way overboard and more often incite violence than quell it.

I don't know whether OWS is behaving like you say en masse, but the cops (and by ext public officials) are no better, and these new 'non lethal' weapons just loosen the ropes on these guard dog mentalities even more..

The cops are usually undercover when they promote violence as the idea is to make groups such as the OWS protesters to look bad. You've seen them and been suckered in by it judging how you're treating the OWS protesters,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur [wikipedia.org]

Very few (if any) cops want to be the guy who shot his sidearm into a crowd of protesters. Even if they don't wind up being prosecuted, it would make their life very shitty for a while.

Not to mention, they are human beings and, with normal human variance, possess a conscience, possibly even slightly more than the average citizen given their affinity for a dangerous job that primarily involves protecting other people.

I'd disagree. I would suggest they possess slightly less conscience on average given that they voluntarily choose to engage in highly dangerous work which requires training in violent/hostile/confrontational positions. Their training is to take command of any situation through means of psychological and physical intimidation, followed by force if necessary. Positions which involve power and control attract people who desire power and control for their own sake, and those people are usually the last ones who should actually have it and the first to abuse it when they do.

Positions where the members who hold them are held to far less account than they otherwise would in general attract those who are more likely to abuse power if they have the opportunity. It's hard to make a case that, in general, police are held to higher standards of accountability than the average person. It doesn't matter if you're talking about speeding or murder, police have a network which will seek to protect them, even in cases where it is crystal clear they have exceeded their authority. Your average person on the street has no such support network, so the situational pressures that work against abusive behavior act more strongly on the average person than on the average police officer.

Police work does not primarily involve protecting other people. That is a secondary effect of how modern police organizations operate, almost universally. Their primary purpose is to investigate crimes after the fact, and courts have routinely held that police officers have no duty, whatsoever, to protect anyone. Their secondary objective, in practice if not in theory, is revenue production. This can clearly be seen by looking at organizational and funding choices of police departments across the country (talking from a US-centric point of view here). Those are: traffic fines and civil asset forfeiture. The departments which focus on those items are almost never cut.

Have you actually met a real police officer in the US? It sounds like you haven't. They have no conscience whatsoever. They are bullies. They took the job they have because they can beat people up without getting in trouble for it. When you are attuned to that kind of thing you can see it as soon as you meet them. They are the kinds of people who watch those stupid, unrealistic, violent movies and imagine they were the guy shooting and beating people up. That's their motivation. They want to be that badass.

Actually being part of a group in a position of power with a clear adversarial line between them and the protesters tends to reduce the influence of their conscience, not increase it. That's just an unfortunate aspect of human nature, and can apply to the protesters as well.

Care to show me a weapon that works that is non-lethal 100% of the time? otherwise please use the term "Less-Lethal". I'm pretty sure that even pepper spay can kill someone.

No. Non-lethal is a perfectly good term since it is explicitly designed to incapacitate the target without killing. After all, pistol rounds that are designed to be lethal and are almost invariably fired at "center mass" are only actually lethal in about 20% of cases. Should those be called "less than lethal"? Even rifle rounds are only about 35% lethal, going by battlefield casualty to KIA rates.

And, of course, "unarmed" measures are generally far more painful and debilitating and have a much higher risk o

They're coming up with ever-more creative ways to hurt peaceful protesters -- and let's be honest: Most of the time, they provoke, prod, cajoule, and taunt these people until one of them out of the dozen, hundred, or thousand there snaps, then they point and say "See! See! We're justified" and open up unholy horror on everyone nearby, including journalists, children, and anyone else, then seize or destroy the evidence of what went down, counting on their purchases media contacts to portray their victims as all manner of bad. But whether it's rubber bullets or real ones, the fact is this is a business of causing pain and misery... and it is because the people its being inflicted upon had the audacity to say "I think we can do better than this."

I am the last person to suggest violence as a response to improper government action: I live in a democracy, and one of our main pressure valves to prevent violence is peaceful protest. They're busy stuffing that up now, and just like every other country that has tried it in the past, eventually public sentiment is going to shift. It'll be fine one day, and the next shit will be on fire and they'll be declaring martial law, and the bought-off press will be busy with headlines like "How did this happen?"... Well, it happened because you stupid bastards didn't do your job and report the truth. It happened because people don't like being silenced.

It happened... because human nature isn't all that different from an animal: Keep poking it with a stick and eventually it will stop hiding in the corner and come sink its claws and teeth into you. And why? Because it didn't have a choice.

Nonviolence comes from all sides acknowledging a non-aggression principle: you don't use violence against me or my property, I won't against you. The traditional role of police is to respond to violence with overwhelming violence (or the threat of such): you punch me or smash my shit, they'll arrest you, and if you punch them too they'll come with guns.

But using weapons like this against peaceful protesters isn't what the police are for -- it's using violence against the nonviolent, and the victims (like any other victim of unprovoked aggression) have the right to respond in kind. Bullets, microwave-oven HERF guns, take your pick.

Recent videos show that no excuse is needed, any longer, for completely unprovoked pepper spray attacks (as well as bludgeoning) by senior police officers on completely peaceful protestors.

I too believe in peaceful protest. THAT SHIP IS SINKING OR SUNK. Our political power, at this point, is limited to refusing paychecks (not following unethical orders.) The police, themselves, must stop using violence in their daily jobs. The use of pepper spray to hurt people who are not hurting you, is wrong. The use of a vortex cannon to squirt that pepper spray is no more, nor less, wrong.

The US government system is so corrupt that the corruption is "trickle down" and I, for one, am having more trouble with corrupt corporations at the personal level. And hearing stories about corruption.

The police are outnumbered by the citizens they protect a thousand to 1 at least and they can only be effective if the majority of those citizens trust them and cooperate with them. The social contract that all officers of the law have with its citizens is this: "We trust you, you protect us." It's a simple, straight-forward principle that depends on the officer's ethical conduct being at all times impeccable. Any unethical behavior observed and the officer should be quickly stripped of rank and authority to maintain public trust.

That isn't happening anymore. Our country now has mock trials where they declare the officers innocent, or that the protesters were engaged in vague-sounding crimes like "resisting without violence"... which in most of those cases can be rightly called, "speaking one's mind." Officers seize and destroy evidence of their own misconduct. They preferentially attack people on the basis of race, sexual orientation, ethnicity (perceived or actual), or on social class. These are not isolated cases: They are widespread issues that regularly receive attention in the press, though heavily edited, redacted, and spun to appear less severe than it is. It does not take anyone long on google to find a current, relevant case of significant police misconduct involving many officers, often an entire department or city of them.

The social contract of "We trust you, you protect us" is broken. And that's a problem. That's a big problem. That is in fact a super huge democracy-threatening problem... because if people don't assemble to protect out of fear, then that anger with the status quo isn't visible. We (as a society) don't know there's a problem, can't address it, and so the anger builds and builds until we start getting gunman in the bell towers, people marching into classrooms and blowing away everyone they see... We get sporatic acts of seemingly random violence because these individuals feel they cannot be heard. And then we have a society living in fear, more fear, terrible amounts of fear.

And protracted anxiety and fear destroys economies, governments, and institutions. Democracy depends on freedom, and freedom depends on the confidence to use those freedoms. I cannot find anyone above the age of 21 who thinks they have the freedom of speech they were told they had in school. I have trouble finding anyone who's willing to attend a protest for something they believe in and support out of fear of "getting a record" or "getting on a list". They well and truly believe their livelihoods would be threatened by engaging in activities protected by the highest law in the land, activities that our founding fathers and every reputable scholar on the subject of civil liberty and democracy says are essential for the functioning of this society.

we start getting gunman in the bell towers, people marching into classrooms and blowing away everyone they see... We get sporatic acts of seemingly random violence

This is what the police andf politics will read. Yes, it is edited like a boss (or a/. editor, you decide) and their answer is to give MORE power to the police and tell all that want to listen: Doi you want to have terrorists in the towers? Do you want your kids killed in school?

I have trouble finding anyone who's willing to attend a protest for something they believe in and support out of fear of "getting a record" or "getting on a list".

People fear this because it can and does happen. The economy is tough enough for young people who've worked hard and kept their noses clean. They don't call the occupy crowd "unemployable" for nothing you know.

I cannot find anyone above the age of 21 who thinks they have the freedom of speech they were told they had in school. I have trouble finding anyone who's willing to attend a protest for something they believe in and support out of fear of "getting a record" or "getting on a list". They well and truly believe their livelihoods would be threatened by engaging in activities protected by the highest law in the land, activities that our founding fathers and every reputable scholar on the subject of civil libert

It is only going to get worse. Europe had life very cheap for over a millennium from the fall of Rome and the tiny dukedoms and duchies. A starving person stealing a loaf of bread? It was likely they would get beheaded, hanged, or just hacked to death. Just being homeless was grounds for being thrown in the clink, shipped off to a penal colony, or perhaps just killed outright. Peasant results were always unsuccessful, and resulted in a ton of people being burned at the stake if they were leaders, or just run through and left where they were.

The only reason that this brutal way of life isn't with us now is because of the plague. With the Black Plague taking out the backs for nobles to flail, they actually had to make concessions (Magna Carta) in order to keep order (this after they realized that they were running out of peasants to kill.)

Same thing is happening now. Higher populations end up with brutal police states. I'm not going to be surprised if our kids are living in one room places like the main character out of Fifth Element, with the spots on the wall to put your hands during the random shakedowns, with permits required to ever leave a city, and with long prison terms being the norm (because there is a whole industry around locking people up.)

People talk about revolution? In reality, revolution as we know it is impossible. What ends up happening is that there is a crackdown, a lot of people tortured and killed, the regime in power tightening its grip making life harder for everyone else, and things going on. A crowd protesting in the streets? A helicopter gunship full of napalm or high rpm chain guns is inexpensive, will take care of the job, and there will be no successive protests afterwards. Libya was overthrown not because of internal politics, but because the US invaded and bumped off its leader. Without external influence, what will happen in most countries is what is happening in Syria -- towns and villages turned into craters, and actually more stability for the people in charge since all the revolutionaries showed themselves and were killed.

With the advent of social media, it is trivial for governments to take out would-be firebrands. Someone becoming popular with their speeches? A quick overnight disappearance takes care of that.

One can credit the black plague for the Western Renaissance, but future generations won't be that lucky.

Most of the time, they provoke, prod, cajoule, and taunt these people until one of them out of the dozen, hundred, or thousand there snaps

Not that I agree with deploying this type of technology against peaceful protesters, but what you're describing sounds * exactly* like the Occupy movement's tactics to provoke the police to assault them, thereby ensuring the incident ends up all over the news. Just sayin'.

Police are supposed to be trained officers. They are being provoked by taunts? Throw those goddamn police out of their jobs, with a black mark on their records. What you say is (trolling?) bullshit. I have seen numerous videos of peaceful people blindsided by police with pepper spray and bludgeons. Overwhelming force, yet the police are provoked by taunts? You live in a world of hypocrisy and denial, previous poster.

Wow, such vitriol directed towards someone that might have a different perspective than you. Yeah, I've seen the UC YouTube video, and I've also read stories about Occupy camps rigging booby-traps when threatened with eviction, throwing human shit at police, cursing at them, daring them to attack, threatening lawsuits, etc. As with most things, the truth is most likely somewhere in the middle, unless we choose to wear blinders that let us think one side can do nothing but good and the other is always wron

I'm sure it's true that at least some of the Occupyers weren't completely innocent, but the same applies to the police. And frankly, I expect far more restraint out of them than I do out of the (mostly) peaceful protesters.

Wow, such vitriol directed towards someone that might have a different perspective than you. Yeah, I've seen the UC YouTube video, and I've also read stories about Occupy camps rigging booby-traps when threatened with eviction, throwing human shit at police, cursing at them, daring them to attack, threatening lawsuits, etc.

The protesters are civilians. Police are supposed to be trained professionals. If you're a cop at a protest, you're wearing a face shield and helmet, you're armed and dangerous, and you can change out of your uniform at the end of your shift. Why care about what's thrown at you by civilians? It's your job to take it and react reasonably. It's what you were hired for. If you can't handle that, you're in the wrong job.

Why any policeman would think it's reasonable conduct to pepper spray a line of kneeling civilians is beyond me. I'd be looking around for a rifle if I saw that happening.

Have you *seen* the stuff they're packing? Kevlar body armor, riot shields, fall face masks... anything short of a rifle or a molotov cocktail isn't going to significantly hurt them.

If your job is cashier at McDonalds, you're expected to be able to handle some irate customer yelling at you without flipping out. If your job is programmer at Ubersoft, you're expected to be able to handle a moronic boss yelling at you without losing your shit. And if your job is police officer armed up and suited for a riot, you're expected to be able to handle people yelling at you and tossing rocks without bringing out the shotguns and chemical weapons.

The police don't need better weapons. They need better brains. Problem is, between shitty funding, politics, and a fundamentally broken sense of justice in America, most of the police don't actually know how to handle this sort of thing. They're just as scared as the protesters are, but hey, they've got a badge, and someone handed them a billy club and a can of OC, so they're going to use it the same way any undertrained, terrified person would.

Have you *seen* the stuff they're packing? Kevlar body armor, riot shields, fall face masks... anything short of a rifle or a molotov cocktail isn't going to significantly hurt them.

If your job is cashier at McDonalds, you're expected to be able to handle some irate customer yelling at you without flipping out. If your job is programmer at Ubersoft, you're expected to be able to handle a moronic boss yelling at you without losing your shit. And if your job is police officer armed up and suited for a riot, you're expected to be able to handle people yelling at you and tossing rocks without bringing out the shotguns and chemical weapons.

The police don't need better weapons. They need better brains. Problem is, between shitty funding, politics, and a fundamentally broken sense of justice in America, most of the police don't actually know how to handle this sort of thing. They're just as scared as the protesters are, but hey, they've got a badge, and someone handed them a billy club and a can of OC, so they're going to use it the same way any undertrained, terrified person would.

Just because police wear body armor it doesn't mean that the crowds should be allowed to ramp up their offence accordingly, it's not a fricking peaceful protest when people are throwing rocks around.

Why care about what's thrown at you by civilians? It's your job to take it and react reasonably.

Arresting people who throw things at police is quite reasonable. Just because you are protesting doesn't give you the right to assault police officers. (That's what throwing things at them is.) Just because you are a citizen who happens to be a police officer doesn't give other citizens the right to assault you without consequences. Or are you thinking, what's a brick in the head between citizens?

Why any policeman would think it's reasonable conduct to pepper spray a line of kneeling civilians is beyond me.

If the protesters, the kneeling civilians, are refusing to comply with a lawful order to vacate the area, th

Why care about what's thrown at you by civilians? It's your job to take it and react reasonably.

Arresting people who throw things at police is quite reasonable. Just because you are protesting doesn't give you the right to assault police officers.

I agree, and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction on the part of the police.

Why any policeman would think it's reasonable conduct to pepper spray a line of kneeling civilians is beyond me.

If the protesters, the kneeling civilians, are refusing to comply with a lawful order to vacate the area, the police can generally use force of some kind.

Certainly, and I'd expect them to know what the meaning of the phrase "excessive force" is. Pepper spray used on non-violent, unresisting protesters is excessive.

I'd be looking around for a rifle if I saw that happening.

So, you threaten to use lethal force against law enforcement officers using generally non-lethal means that nearly everyone recovers from...

Given yourself enough weasel room there? Cops don't get a pass just because they're cops. If they act as bad as the tyrants who hired them, they are as bad as the tyrants who hired them. Civilization exists for civilians. Authoritarians go to the back of the bus.

I hope you consider a camera first. Whether it is justified or not, shooting or threatening another person with a gun over a threat or use of violence doesn't make you any better than they are. You shoot that officer and your life is over, he's elevated to martyrdom by Homeland, and thousands more will suffer under 'enhanced' police powers to keep that from happening. If you want to make a difference, you take a good picture of him. You make sure that picture of what he's doing gets in front of every person in his community. Everyone he's supposed to be responsible for protecting. You make sure they know that man cannot be trusted. You make sure his personal, home mailbox is so choked with letters from concerned citizens he has to pay to keep a special PO box just so he can get mail. You make sure the police department is spending more than his salary paying off journalists to paint him in a good light, paying more to squelch the letters to the editor, and still more because every person in that community files a complaint for every single thing he does. You make him ineffective, gimp, useless -- a liability to the department he works for.

You make it so bad even his coworkers groan whenever they have to work with him. That's how you fight back: You don't pickup a damn weapon, you bury the bastards in their own bureauacracy. You make them beg to have everyone who sends a letter put on a special rectal exam at the airport list -- and each time they cross the line to protect this jerk, you're right there with a camera. You're right there with a letter, a pen, a microphone, a megaphone. You stay peaceful, you stay civil.

And after you've done all of this... Then you sit down with 3 other people who feel the same way you do and you say, "Okay, here's what we're going to do..."

I hope you consider a camera first. Whether it is justified or not, shooting or threatening another person with a gun over a threat or use of violence doesn't make you any better than they are.

Very, very good point, thanks. As I just mentioned to another poster, I wouldn't have been shooting to harm, but to warn. Still, a cellphone camera plus the web is the smarter weapon for everyone concerned. It's too damned easy these days to believe you're back in 1939 on the streets of Berlin.

I actually like cops and look up to them. I've met about two in my life that I didn't respect as individuals, but I still respected them for just having put on the uniform. I'm pretty much the least of their worr

Why bother? None of the "good citizens" of this country cares what the cops do to protesters or anyone else they want to go after.

Cops doing bad things are filmed all the time. Nothing really comes of it, except maybe the charges against their victim are dismissed.

You want something to happen to cops who do bad things? So far, the only proven way is to burn down part of the city, Los Angeles style. Then maybe a few cops will get some sort of punishment. That's what it

Just because you are upset and protesting doesn't mean you get to be a complete asshole.

Just because you're wearing a uniform and carrying a gun doesn't mean you get to be a complete asshole. You were hired to protect civilians, not assault them, and especially when they're not resisting. Tell me how impossible it is for three cops to drag a kneeling civilian out of the way.

Here's the problem. Can you name one police college off the top of your head that trains using debasement? That's physical and verbal attacks. I doubt it, all of the ones that I know are in Canada. The ones in the US that used to removed that part of the program because of leftie hand-wringing that it was too "mean" and might "provoke a response". So to be honest, I'm not surprise that newer cops are being provoked by taunts. They're not being trained to ignore them.

If you're going to trust your police with guns then you need to be able to trust them not to use them in response to provocation. If you can't find someone that you can trust not to start shooting at people taunting them, then you should just take the guns away from them -- or arrest them for assault.

The Arizona Criminal Code says, plain as day: "the use of force or deadly force is not justified in response to verbal provocation alone".

I'm no fan of some of the shit Occupy has pulled -- in particular, squatting on public land in such a way that it reduces the value the public can get out of it. (I think a lot of their demands are naive and silly, too, but that's neither here nor there, since if being wrong negated the right to free speech we'd have to close all the churches -- and the Capitol, for that matter.) But the police get trigger-happy when provoked then you need some better police.

(NB: Provoking them in a manner that makes them unable to do legitimate police work is a different story.)

There's so much I could say to this, but I'll try to be brief: There has never been a case of a political movement who's platform ended with "... and to achieve this, let's piss off a bunch of people with shotguns while we remain unarmed." The Occupy protests were creative and (when started) legal. They later had what they were doing declared illegal at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, who whispered "terrorist" into the ears of dozens of municipal leaders, who then closed and locked the doors to city hall and passed all manner of legislation in any way they could to give the DHS the ability to coordinate directly with local law enforcement, who then turned hostile. When the protests started, the police didn't interfere. They didn't really have much to say beyond making sure the protesters and the general public near them were safe and living in sanitary conditions... a few arrests here and there, but nobody was making a big deal about it. It was just "the cost of doing business" in a democratic society. Then the goddamned gustapo showed up, ordered them to roll in the tanks and start with the mass arrests and surveillance.

No, there was no provocation from the protesters... in fact, I've never once seen a historically accurate account of any protest who's stated goals were to get tangled with the police, who have a 1,500 win, 0 loss record against protest movements.

They're coming up with ever-more creative ways to hurt peaceful protesters -- and let's be honest: Most of the time, they provoke, prod, cajoule, and taunt these people until one of them out of the dozen, hundred, or thousand there snaps, then they point and say "See! See! We're justified" and open up unholy horror on everyone nearby

unholy horror on everyone nearby, including journalists, children, Who the fuck brings children to a protest where there may be arrests or use of force for anything other than using said children as a human shield? That is pretty fucked up

The only reason it didn't work for Ghaddafi this time was the fact that Europe wanted to shop it's fighter planes for export markets against the US F-35. A lot of countries will be replacing F-16's in the next 15 years and this was the perfect place to showcase the Typhoon and Rafael so they could earn their "proven in combat" badge to potential buyers. Now they can go to countries and say their planes are "combat proven now" while the F-35 is still in testing.

Getting people to disperse in a matter that will piss them off will only work if they wake up in the morning and think "Gosh, I'm kind of embarrassed I was there at all.". Otherwise, it will just make them angrier. And it may not even get them to disperse and go home like you want them to in the first place.

The people who work at firms who make stuff like this should be ashamed of themselves for the world they help create.

But, of course, there are enough people on Slashdot who think that might makes right, and that authority is always correct (most of whome paradoxically are against 'big government') that I suspect these people feel not a glimmer of guilt.

How do you suppose to disperse people without pissing them off? Every tool can be used for good and bad. Not all demonstrators are peaceful, and crowd control is necessary during riots, to prevent an aggressive minority from vandalising the city. Letting a mob do whatever they want leads exactly to that might-makes-right anarchistic scenario you seem to be against.

The article is basically a press release from a company in Ohio that filed a patent application for delivering electrically charged bubbles of gas with a vortex gun. Somehow Slashdot turned it into a rallying cry for Occupy Someplace for Some Reason protesters.

You have a right to peaceful protest. You don't have a right to trespass and disrupt businesses or political gatherings. Respect others' rights and yours will be respected too.

There was a time, perhaps, when only the government had the shiny, new. Super secret facilities in Nevada or Los Alamos chock full of stolen nazi scientists with equipment only defense budgets could afford.

But now I'm seeing massive computing power at the fingertips of most Americans, and amazing technologies like additive manufacturing on the brink of hitting the mainstream, and I wonder how long it will be before the people, getting hit with LRADs and vortex cannons for voicing their opinions, will turn

That's why we need more money spent on cloning tech dammit, we're out of Nazis! Everybody knows we kicked them Ruskies only because our Nazis was better than their Nazis, and now we're all out of Nazis! We'll start with a dozen copies of everyone on Operation paperclip and go from there, starting with a dozen Von Brauns, that'll show the world who leads in Nazis!

Our Nazi scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a Nazi gap.

Damned Ruskies! I bet you're just laughing your asses off ain't ya? First we help you and the damned Limeys out in WWII only for you to get half of Europe, what did we get? Nothing, not a damned thing! Hell the tea swillers even stabbed us in the back and went with that Frog metric system! Then you build all these kick ass fighters for dirt cheap that can land on a fricking two lane while our MIC give us these technocrappers that have so many bugs you can't turn the damned things to the left without screwing up the stupid computers so now you can crank out a dozen SU27s for the cost of a single F35 and they still can't make the damned thing work!

We should have listened to our greatest Hero, the great General Patton, hired them damned Nazis, put their asses in Sherman tanks and rolled right into Moscow! Would have showed your asses THEN huh? Instead that pussy Truman gives it all back, hell we didn't even keep the car building Nazis, bet they wouldn't have built no damned pintos or k cars that's for damned sure!

The German Wehrmacht (and the other regular branches of the German military in WWII) had little to do with the Nazi party. The only "Nazi" military was the Waffen-SS, whose notable accomplishments include running death camps and overall pathetic performance in actual combat. The American stereotype of branding anything related to Germany in the 1933-1945 era as "Nazi" is just wrong.

The German Wehrmacht (and the other regular branches of the German military in WWII) had little to do with the Nazi party. The only "Nazi" military was the Waffen-SS, whose notable accomplishments include running death camps and overall pathetic performance in actual combat. The American stereotype of branding anything related to Germany in the 1933-1945 era as "Nazi" is just wrong.

Even the Wehrmacht had to at least toe the party line. If I remember correctly, Rommel, arguably the best general of WWII(on either side) was punished for not being a Nazi. It is important to remember that the assassination plot that came closest to killing Hitler was planned out and executed by Wehrmacht officers. But yeah, your average Wehrmacht grunt was not a Nazi. And the Waffen-SS actually had a fairly strong reputation on the Eastern front, and were known as very effective and fierce fighters.

During the time the Nazis were in power, you had to be a member of the Nazi party just to have a job, so technically every working german at the time was a Nazi. So it makes it confusing to disentangle the real Nazis who did all the horrible things and the ones that just said they were 'Nazi' just to keep a job.

During the time the Nazis were in power, you had to be a member of the Nazi party just to have a job, so technically every working german at the time was a Nazi. So it makes it confusing to disentangle the real Nazis who did all the horrible things and the ones that just said they were 'Nazi' just to keep a job.

Much the same happens anywhere you have a totalitarian political system. e.g. in Iraq with the Ba'ath Party.

the intelligentsia who were truly intelligent understood what was happening in the 1930s, and they left. or were kicked out. the people doing research on vortex cannons during wwii would not have been 'innocent bystanders', they were more like von braun , scientists who did not care about the social implications of their work or their relationship with mass murderers.

and the nazi scientific community was controlled and/or infiltrated by the SS, as were most other parts of society, universities, corporations, research labs, radio societies, the youth groups, the judiciary, the hospitals, the churches, etc etc etc

No, he didn't. The Germans had several Panzer units stationed only a few miles from the coast in France. However, Hitler would not allow them to be released because he was convinced the invasion would be at Calais, where the Channel is actually the thinnest. By the time he allowed the tanks to be released, the Allies had already established a beachhead and moved inland. Had they been released when the request was made, the landings would have failed.

As far as being one of the best generals on either side goes he retreated from Africa in defeat and failed to stop the invasion of France. He was a good officer but calling him the best is a stretch.

A lesser General would never have had the successes he had in Africa in the first place. To steal from Wikipedia: "Rommel is regarded as having been a humane and professional officer. His Afrikakorps was never accused of war crimes. Soldiers captured during his Africa campaign were reported to have been treated humanely. Furthermore, he ignored orders to kill captured commandos, Jewish soldiers and civilians in all theaters of his command." And like I said, he didn't lose France. Hitler's ever increasing

Rommel was indeed a honorable and military professional. All the documentaries and other sources of data seem to support this. His biography revealed a man devoted to protecting his country. He also had no direct association with those who committed war crimes. According to his biography he found out about the concentration camps and that led him to talk with some people about the plan to kill Hitler. He did not come out and support the assassination but did meet with some of the conspirators and that ultim

The German Wehrmacht (and the other regular branches of the German military in WWII) had little to do with the Nazi party. The only "Nazi" military was the Waffen-SS, whose notable accomplishments include running death camps and overall pathetic performance in actual combat. The American stereotype of branding anything related to Germany in the 1933-1945 era as "Nazi" is just wrong.

I know, right? I mean, when we got there we couldn't find a single person who was a Nazi.

That is just an idiotic statement. The concentration and labor camps were run by the SS-Totenkopfverbände. The Waffen-SS were fighting units, and the two organizations were distinct. The Waffen-SS had elite training and indoctrination, but their duties were straight combat, which they conducted for the most part as honorably as regular army fighting units in Germany and other countries. Only someone truly clueless would characterize Waffen-SS combat performance as "pathetic". They were highly effective

It bears reminding that the Wehrmacht was fighting to implement the National Socialist vision, and that their advances secured areas allowing the Gestapo, SS, Todt Organisation, and various other German and Axis police, slave labor, and extermination groups to operate.

There is no logical reason to believe that educated members of a modern society like Germany didn't know what was going on. Just because it was EXPEDIENT to pretend that so West Germany could be integrated into NATO doesn't mean one should buy

Gotta' love the attempted spin there by tying it to the Nazis... except that pretty much ALL of the tech in use today was also researched by the Nazis. You know: jet engines, radar, rockets, remote guidance, computers, cryptography, etc etc etc lol

Computers and cryptography you say? That's interesting, because when last I checked, it was an English mathematician who laid down the theory of computation, general purpose computers, software defined computation (as opposed to building a machine to compute problems or classes of problems), it was a Dutch linguist whose theory about secret keys became central to cipher design and an American engineer whose work on information theory became the basis of cipher design (at least for symmetric cryptography).